


The Chains of Convention

by jamesraoulsilva



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Post-Skyfall, ghost!AU -ish. Not exactly., mindfuckery, slight dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:49:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesraoulsilva/pseuds/jamesraoulsilva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond is the man who doesn't look back. He never does.</p>
<p>Who knows how things might have turned out, if he would have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chains of Convention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyrilu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/gifts).



> Unfortunately I was too late to get someone to beta for me due to finals weeks, but I hope I Britpicked/edited adequately enough.  
> Without further ado, kyrilu, here is your gift, and I really hope you like it!

James Bond walks out of the chapel and onto the moors where he ran around as a child and doesn’t look back. He is, after all, James Bond, the man who never looks back. He is the man who called his employer and told her that “the bitch is dead.” He is the man who chose to forget that that same employer betrayed him… and, ultimately, he remains the man who came back to his country when it needed him the most.

So, no, he doesn’t look back, while this time, he definitely should have.

Who knows how things might have turned out, if he would have.

He walks towards the roaring fire that is slowly, slowly, dying out, the remains of his ancestral home, with the faint idea to get his car and drive back to London and get debriefed.

He is vaguely aware of Kincade following him and talking to him, but he stumbles forward, tripping over branches and barely keeping himself upright. Then a thought hits him, and he turns around to backtrack, only to be stopped by the old gamekeeper with his strong arms.

“I need to get her– I need– ”

“My boy,” Kincade says, his voice cracking; not for himself, not for her, but for James.

~ 00 ~

The debriefing that eventually follows is rough.

Mallory cuts him some slack, Bond knows that, but he isn't sure about his true intentions. The new M made his point of view on Bond's return to the field quite clear. _Hire me or fire me_ , Bond had said. He doesn't think Mallory would shirk from firing him if he wanted to. He supposes he needs to make do with the man's sympathy, however temporary it may eventually turn out to be.

If possible, they put him through even more tests than when he returned after being MIA, supposedly KIA. Psychological tests, that is. They make him tell and retell in great detail what he has experienced – focusing, of course, on what Tiago Rodriguez (alias Raoul Silva) did to him.

 

“Could you describe to me what he said to you?” one of the examiners asks.

Bond huffs. “Again?”

In return, he only gets a patient look, almost to the point of being embarrassingly and unbearably emphatic.

And Bond narrates the speech.

 

“Were the touches sexual?”

That depends on who you ask, Bond supposes. “I am sure he intended them to be. He definitely made insinuations.”

“Could you repeat those?”

And Bond rolls his eyes and does as they ask. He knows Mallory is watching him closely, through the tinted glass.

 

They make him sit through another of those moronic word-association games. The first one starts out just as innocently, but turns ugly when they ask “M.”

He stands up and leaves the room.

 

Trial and error, Bond thinks. They have asked him 13 words already and it’s going better than he expected – so far.

“Country.”

He raises his eyebrow. _Again_? “England.”

“Chair.”

_Tied hands_. “Table.” He eliminates the question mark in his speech. If a notion of hesitation is discovered another examination will follow.

“Island.”

_Blond hair._ “Ocean.” He forces himself to keep eye contact with his examiner. This is fucking ridiculous.

“Sil… ver.”

_Touching – for fuck’s sake, really?_ “Gold.” He forces himself to keep breathing steadily. He can’t afford to become angry and walk out. Not again.

“Torture.”

“Silva.” But really it’s _M cyanide Silva China back left molar Tiago Rodriguez alias Raoul Silva M bitch –_ but it’s out before he can stop himself. He can’t keep a muscle in his right hand from twitching – his index finger pull the trigger pull—

The examiner gathers his papers, stands up and leaves. Ten minutes later he comes back and tells Bond he can go.

~ 00 ~

The moment MI6 is allowed back to Vauxhall Cross again and is honourably and ceremonially restored, Bond starts executing his plans.

He starts visiting Q branch, especially Q, in order to befriend the young man.

All to a purpose, of course.

He knows Mallory is holding something back from him, something Mallory didn't mention when he told him he passed the exams. He needs to see the documents, wants to see the results. He feels that Mallory let him off too easily. Nothing is simple, not anymore.

It used to be.

Get a name, a face, a location; acquire a weapon, and off you go, 007. Turn on the murder machine. Go wild, go insane. See if I care. There’s always the debriefing. And he always passed them. And he never questioned why.

It used to be mutual respect.

Until the top class hacker came along and told him — he actually failed.

_Stop looking back._

So he invites Q for a drink in a pub but is turned down with a scrunched nose, a smile and a mumbled “I have some work to do, contrary to _some_ of us”.

Q suggests taking one of his assistants out if he desires company, but Bond manages to get away before that happens. He needs Q, because he needs someone who has access to MI6's most highly guarded documents.

Because he needs someone who is actually competent.

Bond might have a bit of trouble admitting that.

~ 00 ~

Upon realising Q's almost ridiculous faith and loyalty towards 'the company', Bond wonders if the boy is intimidated by Mallory, and ponders whether he should have approached Q differently – intimidation as well, instead of friendliness, but then comes to understand that Q is sturdier than Bond thought he was. Well, one must be, Bond acknowledges, to be able to work in this shit-infested, politically askew and generally bloody awful environment.

Then Bond is sent on a short mission. His first, since mission _Skyfall_.

“Are you ready to get back to work?”

“With pleasure, M,” and Bond's eyes slightly mist over, quickly swallowing. “With pleasure.”

And it _is_ pleasure.

It's easy, it's clean, it's fast.

It makes the adrenaline in his blood boil, burn, as he chases his target through the streets of Munich. As he finally corners the wide-eyed, sweat-soaked, guilty man in a corner of an abandoned factory, after Bond chased him up three floors. As he draws his gun and the man does too, but Bond is faster and the man's gun clatters to the ground as his body swiftly follows, then the sickening thud as flesh hits concrete – doing nothing to Bond but filling him with the joy of a job well done.

Mallory seems beside himself with satisfaction at making the right choice of allowing Bond back into the field. Bond sits through the debriefing with a quick smile on his face.

And things almost seem like they’re back to normal.

~ 00 ~

He tries to keep getting closer to the Quartermaster, but at one point realises that his attempts are futile.

He considers finding and paying a hacker who's not bound to any rules, to anyone, but quickly finds out those are few in number, and all are subpar, and none are safe enough to approach – even though Bond is on good terms with Mallory now, he doesn't suppose he can get away with, what would it be – _high_ treason?

So he pursues a new, different avenue.

Bond keeps close track of all the new Q branch employees, to see if any show the talent he can use.

Two attract his attention.

One of them is a 23-year old woman, a genius, just like Q. He befriends her, easily, and is quite relieved and reassured as it seems he hasn't lost his charm. Ultimately, one thing leads to another, and when he asks her to do something for him (while they’re both still sweat-soaked and lying on her bed), she does so without hesitation.

It’s taking advantage – Bond knows it.

He’s not sure whether he doesn’t care or if it has just become a part of him – whether he has grown into the role of predator or if he has been one since birth.

The problem is that she gets caught. Apparently she keeps her mouth shut about Bond’s part in it, but she gets fired and he hears nothing from her.

He briefly wonders what they did with her. They could have her eliminated; or, they could have her “accidentally” eliminated.

With a slightly unnerved gut feeling he continues his search. He trusts his instincts that there must be something in those documents he needs to see, so he investigates the second promising candidate. This one's a man, of about the same age as Bond. Besides that, he knows nothing.

And, _really_ , he should have seen it coming.

~ 00 ~

Bond is casually leaning against a wall, keeping an eye on his target while sipping a coffee. He followed him around the offices, until the man settled himself in one of Q branches’ offices. It’s a room with large windows in the hallway walls – perfect for spying. The man is sitting with his back towards Bond, however, and he still hasn’t gotten a good look at the man’s face.

At a moment which seems opportune, Bond crumples his empty cup, throws it in a bin and pushes himself off of the wall—

when Moneypenny click-clacks into the hallway, a cloud of perfume and high heels and agitation, stacks of papers and folders in her arms. She breathes out a sigh of relief when she spots Bond.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, with her sharp voice, and immediately continues, “never mind, M is looking for you.”

Bond stares behind her, but it seems his target is still engrossed in his work.

“Bond,” Moneypenny urges him.

“What, now?” he eventually lazily responds.

“Yes! Now!”

There isn’t really anything he can do besides following her to _M_ ’s office.

~ 00 ~

The first dream is… weird. Bond doesn’t know how to put it.

There’s a voice in his apartment and Bond shoots upright in his bed. At first he thinks he simply woke up – but the voice is too familiar. Too familiar to be real.

“Most blameless is _he_.”

It’s like a song which lures Bond from his slumber and into his kitchen, and the voice becomes louder and grows clearer as he comes nearer.

“However; _she_? There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariner—”

There’s the shape of a man near the window. He doesn’t move, and falls silent as Bond enters the room.

Silence clouds the air between them, until the man turns around and closes the distance between them in two, three large strides. Before Bond has a chance to _see_ anything, the man puts his hands up in front of Bond’s face, blocking his view, and whispers, “my Commander Bond.”

~ 00 ~

He wakes up with a pounding heart.

~ 00 ~

That day, to distract himself, he opens the hunt once again, only observing, not approaching, obediently following the old saying “know your prey.” Irritatingly enough, the man seems like flowing silk between Bond’s fingers and he can’t grasp him.

Out of pure annoyance he retreats to his newly appointed office and paces up and down. He outright _sucks_ at doing nothing and the memory of the dream starts swirling around the edge of his subconscious.

So he catches up on some paperwork. Anything to keep busy.

Later that day, when he files his report in Q branch, the Quartermaster casually rolls over in his desk chair, steaming cup of coffee in his _annoying_ mug, and says, “trying to curry favour with me, double-oh seven?”

Bond smiles lazily and says, “who knows.”

When he gets to his new apartment – it’s not home. He has been living there for a week – he looks around at the mostly empty room and throws his keys in a corner.

He drinks himself into a stupor and falls asleep in his only chair, by the living room window, legs up, curtains open, the restless London traffic as a white noise on the background.

It doesn’t help.

~ 00 ~

“It are not unbecoming men that strove with Gods and it may be that the gulfs will wash us down.”

A pause.

“Ah, James. We strove with Gods, did we not?”

Bond tries to be quicker this time but only catches a glimpse – brown hair, a part of a jawline, slight stubble, a dark shadow in his neck—

and searing white pain like thunder spreading from his temple, then only dark.

~ 00 ~

He wakes up with a _motherfucking_ headache. He tells himself it’s the alcohol but yet, but yet…

After a cold shower and liquid breakfast he slowly drags himself to the office – where a reprimand from M is waiting for him. The report was late and he is late today and everything’s fucking _late_ and Mallory can’t believe the _late_ M condoned this behaviour and Bond stands there in front of his desk and lets the words wash over him and when there’s silence he turns around and slams the door behind him.

Moneypenny knocks over her coffee from the sudden fright and throws him a look but Bond marches away.

He almost looks forward to sleeping again because he knows that this time, _this_ time, he’ll show that asshole something.

He’ll teach him not to fuck around with a double-oh.

~ 00 ~

Bond goes to bed and tucks his gun under his pillow. He makes sure to fall asleep with his hand under his pillow, fingers firmly clasped around the grip of the gun, feeling both slightly more secure and a bit uneasy – there’s always that slight fear that he’ll never wake up again because the gun goes off accidentally.

Just before he falls asleep the notion that this is ridiculous comes to mind. Why is he arming himself against an imaginary foe?

However, when he realises he is dreaming, he is holding his gun and he is in his apartment – again. He hears a faint humming, and crouches alongside the wall of his hallway, about to enter the living room. He glances around the corner and sees—no one?

Then there’s the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead. Bond tenses, realising that his target was crouching against the other side of the wall.

He can make out a broken nose, the striking feature strongly defined against the sharp shadows of the night. Full lips.

“Be a good man and drop your gun, James.”

Bond does as he asks. _The voice, the voice_. Somehow, he knows, but is reluctant to accept the inevitable truth.

This time he expects it, when the gun is retracted, then smashed against his temple; and he falls unconscious.

~ 00 ~

The next day, in the offices, he is lurking in the same spot, and hoping and willing the man he has been following is a man of habit.

It turns out, he is not.

He struts around the hallways for hours on end, having a face like thunder, until, in the late afternoon, he spots his target in the cafeteria. He goes up to the bar and orders a cup of coffee, and sits down in a dark corner, where he can keep an eye on every part of the room.

Irritatingly, the man somehow managed to sit with his back towards Bond – again – but Bond keeps watching, and at a certain moment, the man turns around.

And his brain doesn’t want to believe what his eyes see.

The image projected on his retina seems blurred – he can’t focus, it seems like he is experiencing two seconds of lag, like watching a video on a slow connection but—

It is a perfect copy of Raoul Silva, only – rougher, is the word that comes to mind. Less smooth around the edges. Darker, is the second word. He has dark brown hair, dark shadows under his eyes. Dark clothing, too. He seems a negative of Raoul Silva, although he is undoubtedly one and the same.

Subconsciously, Bond has squeezed his cardboard cup so hard that the coffee has spilled over his hands and he snaps out of it when he feels that the liquid is burning his fingers.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, reaching for a napkin to wipe his table with.

When he looks up, the man is gone.

~ 00 ~

He doesn’t want to sleep.

He has knocked back several cups of coffee, cans of energy drink, and he is pacing up and down his living room, cracking his knuckles, restlessly scratching a spot on his right shoulder.

When he looks at it, eventually, he sees blood. He didn’t feel it.

He washes it off and sits down in his chair by the window.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep.

“Hello James,”  
he hears once again. Remnants of a past conversation fly through his head – he pushes them away.

_He_ is leaning against the wall of his living room, casually, with crossed arms. When Bond sees him, the man smiles, ruefully.

“I thought we could do this again.”

“What,” Bond says, mumbling, stumbling over his own words, _he drugged me he drugged how_ , “you’re abducting me in my own apartment?”

Bond knows it’s just another nightmare, it doesn’t matter what he says. Coming night he’ll dream again and he can try again.

“No, not exactly, James.”

He pushes himself off the wall,

“think,” he whispers in James’s ear.

~ 00 ~

“I thought we could do this again.”

It’s the same setting.

“What, you’re abducting me, again?”

A flash of disappointment ghosts over the man’s face.

“But… not exactly?” Bond tries.

Is that approval he sees? The edges are too blurry to focus, to understand, to process.

~ 00 ~

“I thought we could do this—”

“Again?” Bond says.

“Isn’t it amazing how you can finish my sentences? Can you look inside my head as I can inside yours?”

The man darts forward, pulls up a chair (from where?) and smiles.

He places his hands on Bond’s knees. “Let me take care of you?”

Bond doesn’t know why he’s so tired, he thinks he sleeps, and yes the dreams haunt him but dreaming means he’s asleep but he stumbles through the days called in sick he never calls in sick he talked about Q to the man what man that man who—

Bond leans forward and whispers, “why don’t you go fuck yourself.”

The man smile only broadens and he brushes his hands up to the seams of Bond’s pants, leans in and when he tries to kiss Bond, Bond only turns away the last second.

“Oh, Mr Bond. How disappointing.”

~ 00 ~

Coffee didn’t work and he is slowly losing his mind.

Time to drown all the feelings in alcohol. Again.

What's funny is that you can drown sorrow in alcohol – he forgets about M – but anger, anger floats on drink.

When he wakes up next morning, he can’t remember his dream. He has a raging erection anyway, and he bites on one fist to not scream while he quickly finishes himself with his other hand.

When he showers, he finally notices that his knuckles are red, raw, and sticky with dried-up blood.

He sees vague red marks on the kitchen wall.

He tapes his hands and tries to forget.

He ignores the fact that his lips are chapped and his thighs are bruised.

~ 00 ~

When he finally calls in at MI6 again, after three days of absence, there are all kinds of concerned people fluttering around him. He doesn’t necessarily understand why. He’s away so often – to other cities, other countries, the other end of the world (since the shithole that’s MI6 is one of them).

First it’s Moneypenny, whom he tried to evade, since Moneypenny inevitably leads to M. However, she surprises him by handing him a coffee and saying that she’s glad he’s back.

He accepts it with a nod and a confused feeling.

Next up is Q, who _almost_ surprises Bond by suddenly standing behind him and whispering, “good luck with it.”

_With what?_ Bond just nods and, after holing up in his office, decides it’s time to get answers. He marches to Mallory’s office, ignores Moneypenny’s “Bond, he’s on the phone—Bond!” and flings open the door.

Mallory is, indeed, on the phone, and after giving Bond an irritated look, he calmly continues his conversation.

“Yes. … I see. … Well, why are you telling me this, call the bloody PM.” Mallory removes the phone from his ear, looks at it, takes a deep breath and puts it down, _composed_ as he’s supposed to be.

“Yes?” Mallory finally asks.

“I need to know what’s in the _Skyfall_ mission report.”

“Ask the Quartermaster.”

“He tells me they’re secured and protected on a high level.”

“Oh. Oh, I remember. It’s confidential information, double-oh se—”

“I was part of the bloody mission,” Bond advances, until he’s up to the desk. “I think I know what’s in the documents.”

“Then why do you need to see them?”

“Because there is _something_ you’re not telling me.” Bond straightens his shoulders.

“Well,” Mallory laces his fingers together. His arm is finally out of the sling, after getting shot by Silva. “I suppose I must have had a good reason for that, mustn’t I?”

Bond doesn’t know whether to put his faith in Mallory. Whether to tell him. Suddenly, he feels so young and incompetent again. Carrying a terrible secret that no one knows about, and you’re sure that if you tell someone, they’ll call you insane.

Ghosts don’t exist.

He remember his grandmother told him that.

Bond turns on his heel.

~ 00 ~

“It’s nice and all that you tie me to a chair every now and then, but it would be great if you didn’t knock me out this time,” Bond says coolly.

The man is smoking, by the open window, and there’s a steady, cold wind blowing over Bond’s naked chest. At least he’s wearing pants.

“Sure,” the man rasps. “Tell me what to do and what not to do.”

“What’s in the documents?”

The man sighs. He seems to hesitate, whether to speak or not. Eventually, he stubs out his cigarette on the windowsill and walks to Bond, halting when he’s standing between his knees.

“Why do you think I’m going to tell you that?” the man asks, after a few more long, long seconds of silence.

“Because obviously it affects you as well as me.”

Bond refuses to crane his neck to look up, and look the man in the eyes.

Then a sharp finger tilts up his chin, forces Bond to look – and when he meets those dark eyes, he can finally see them in focus, not blurred anymore.

When the man speaks, it are quiet, calculated words. “You continue to surprise me, James. Good. I’m not a…”

“Man of habit?” Bond suggests.

An inclination of the head. “Quite so.”

After a thoughtful pause, he adds, “just like you, James.”

“Hmm.”

He’s cold. He wants the man to go away and let him sleep, peacefully.

Then the man leans down, and only stops when their noses _just_ touch. Bond stares into his eyes but the pupils seem to flow over into the irises, simply pools of black. A nightmarish tableau.

Then Bond’s face is clamped between two cool hands and he is forcefully kissed. He fights back, but he knows it’s just for show. The man kisses’ are cold, but in a way full of feeling. It empties Bond’s mind – just like driving a sports car, chasing targets, jumping between train cars, f a l l i n g into water from a great height.

It’s addictive.

And it’s addictive because it’s adrenaline.  
And Bond has been an adrenaline junkie ever since he joined the Navy and, consecutively, MI6.

So when the man pulls away, Bond makes a disapproving noise.

“Eat me up,” the man mutters, turning away.

Something clicks.

“Tiago.”

The man half turns back, his body twisted in a strange way.

“Untie me. So we can do this properly.”

Blinking. Breathing. Eventually, the man walks around the chair and unties Bond.

Bond is up in a split second and he turns, pushes the chair out of the way, and goes on his knees in front of the man. With a soft moan, he grasps Bond shoulder, to steady himself.

Bond feels him tense, but pays no mind, and unzips the man’s trousers, and frees his cock from its confines. He hears the man take heaving breaths, but Bond blows cold air over the tip, then darts his tongue out to taste.

“Mierda.”

“Quiet,” Bond says.

Oh, to finally have the upper hand.

Double-oh seven is set free, the machine turned off – off you go.

He keeps teasing, licking, blowing. He grabs the man by the hips, undoubtedly bruising him, but he doesn’t care.

A few short moments later, the man is hard enough and already breathing heavily, fingers digging into Bond’s shoulders.

“I… mm—”

Bond effectively cuts the man off by circling his tongue around the head of the man’s cock, and when he glances up he sees the man’s biting his bottom lip, eyes closed.

For a moment, Bond almost hesitates.

Then he swallows the man down, licking long, languid lines from the base to the tip. He doesn’t want to hurt the man, but when he still doesn’t get encouraged, he decides to be a bit less than careful with his teeth.

“Motherf—”

Bond grins to himself and finally swallows him down, hollowing his cheeks, making a point of it not to gag on the man’s impressive length, and slightly humming, making his lips trill. His knees are starting to hurt and so is his back, from the strain. He releases the man’s side with one hand and lets it creep under the man’s shirt, nails softly raking over the sensitive skin of his sides.

He pulls back, and lavishly swirls his tongue around the tip.

Then the man comes, hard, without warning, and Bond pulls back, just in time to catch the man as he collapses, half on top of Bond, half in his arms.

Bond covers him up, lets him lie down, and then he simply goes to bed.

~ 00 ~

The man is sitting in Bond’s chair by the window, legs slung over an armrest. He seems to be looking at his nails, rotating his hands to see them flicker and flash in the faint light from a lamp on a nearby table. The man looks bored. Then he seems to notice that Bond entered the room, and he swings his legs back around and stands up in one fluent, agile movement.

“How,” Bond simply asks.

“Ah, James. I strove with the Gods, did I not? I told you, but you did not understand.” He pauses, breathes. “If I could revive myself once, why not twice? It was not so hard. Nor was it pleasant.”

He spreads his arms. “However, I am here. With drugs,”  he adds as an afterthought.

“So, what the fuck was in the documents, what did you try to keep from me, _Silva_?”

“They diagnosed you with Stockholm syndrome,” he says, without batting an eye. “Nonetheless, MI6 is still filled with idiots, and they got it the wrong way around.”

“How so?”

This time, Bond doesn’t get an answer.

“You know,” the man continues, “I would have liked to have done it properly. Last night.”

“But?” Bond asks, feeling there’s something more.

“Well…” The man pauses.

“People don’t change.”

Bond closes his eyes. “ And we aren’t men of habit.”

00

**Author's Note:**

> /crosses fingers/ I hope this is to your liking, kyrilu!  
> Quite nervous to post this, but I liked writing it and I really, really hope I fulfilled some wishes on your list!  
> \- much love, jrs


End file.
